er, work in the
fields from early morning until eleven or twelve o'clock, and then come
into school, after their hard toil in the hot sun, as bright and as
anxious to learn as ever.

Of course there are some stupid ones, but these are the minority. The
majority learn with wonderful rapidity. Many of the grown people are
desirous of learning to read. It is wonderful how a people who have been
so long crushed to the earth, so imbruted as these have been,--and they
are said to be among the most degraded negroes of the South,--can have
so great a desire for knowledge, and such a capability for attaining it.
One cannot believe that the haughty Anglo-Saxon race, after centuries of
such an experience as these people have had, would be very much superior
to them. And one's indignation increases against those who, North as
well as South, taunt the colored race with inferiority while they
themselves use every means in their power to crush and degrade them,
denying them every right and privilege, closing against them every
avenue of elevation and improvement. Were they, under such
circumstances, intellectual and refined, they would certainly be vastly
superior to any other race that ever existed.

After the lessons, we used to talk freely to the children, often giving
them slight sketches of some of the great and good men. Before teaching
them the "John Brown" song, which they learned to sing with great
spirit, Miss T. told them the story of the brave old man who had died
for them. I told them about Toussaint, thinking it well they should know
what one of their own color had done for his race. They listened
attentively, and seemed to understand. We found it rather hard to keep
their attention in school. It is not strange, as they have been so
entirely unused to intellectual concentration. It is necessary to
interest them every moment, in order to keep their thoughts from
wandering. Teaching here is consequently far more fatiguing than at the
North. In the church, we had of course but one room in which to hear all
the children; and to make one's self heard, when there were often as
many as a hundred and forty reciting at once, it was necessary to tax
the lungs very severely.

My walk to school, of about a mile, was part of the way through a road
lined with trees,--on one side stately pines, on the other noble
live-oaks, hung with moss and canopied with vines. The ground was
carpeted with brown, fragrant pine-leaves; and as I pas